Hospital Readmissions in Patients with Cirrhosis: A Systematic Review

We found striking heterogeneity in various aspects. First, the inclusion/exclusion criteria varied widely, both cirrhosis-specific (eg, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis) and more general (patients admitted within the prior 30 days). Some of these criteria may bias readmission estimates; the risk of readmission may be reduced in those on hospice, as patients forgo curative therapy. Additionally, an established risk factor for readmission is prior hospitalization⁴¹; excluding patients with prior admissions prohibits analysis of this variable. Another aspect is the capture of readmissions: readmissions outside of the index hospital were not included in most studies. In those that did include outside readmissions, the burden was sizeable: 17% in 1 single-center study and 23% in a multistate administrative database.^16,36 These outside readmissions must be included in future studies; they are as important as same-center readmissions both to patients and CMS.³ Despite this heterogeneity, the studies scored relatively high on the Newcastle–Ottawa risk of bias scale, with the only common deficiency being an inadequate description of follow-up.

Building on the findings of this review, an important step will be the design of interventions to reduce readmissions. Such interventions require a full understanding of this population’s characteristics and needs. Critically, we found a lack of data on social determinants of health. Impairments in these factors are well-established contributors to readmission risk in other populations,^4,40 and are highly prevalent in cirrhosis.⁴² Indeed, CMS has focused resources toward social determinants of health in the effort to reduce utilization and improve outcomes. This lack of data on social determinants of health, as well as other understudied factors, represents an important opportunity for future research efforts to better define the modifiable features that could be targeted in the future to prevent readmissions. Such research is urgently needed and will likely require prospective studies to gather these important factors. Notably, most studies in this systematic review were retrospective and therefore unable to examine many of these understudied factors. Another important aspect that has received little attention is readmission preventability: only 2 studies assessed preventability, both through unstructured chart review. Preventability assessments in noncirrhotic populations have used wide-ranging methodologies, yielding inconsistent results.⁴³ This variability prompted recommendations that preventability should be assessed by multiple reviewers guided by explicit parameters.⁴³ Such detailed attention to preventability is urgently needed to better inform interventions.

In contrast to the lack of data on social factors, we found that the MELD score was examined in most studies and was frequently associated with readmission. Despite this consistent association, differences in the MELD scores between studies limit inferences into specific cutoff values that could identify the highest risk patients. Because of its existing widespread clinical use, the MELD score may prove to be important in readmission risk stratification. Efforts to develop a useful model including the MELD score are needed to target interventions to the highest risk patients.

This review has several limitations. Although we used a broad search strategy to capture studies, some may not have been included due to our selection criteria. For instance, 1 retrospective paper described factors associated with high admission density during 1 year but did not specifically report the frequency of early readmissions.⁴⁴ Similarly, a randomized trial of a disease management program did not specifically examine early readmissions.⁴⁵ Another quasi-experimental study of a quality improvement initiative was not included because a large proportion of their subjects was post liver transplant.⁴⁶ However, the inclusion of these papers is unlikely to change our conclusions; the retrospective study identified factors similar to those in the included studies, and the quasi-experimental study overlapped with the included study that assessed frailty.²⁷ Another potential limitation is the exclusion of studies published in abstract form only. Such studies may be important, as the field of cirrhosis readmissions is relatively young. However, including only full-paper publications ensures the inclusion of only higher quality studies scrutinized during the peer-review process. Similarly, newer published studies may have been missed due to the abundant interest in this topic and ongoing research. Lastly, the significant heterogeneity of the studies limits conclusions that can be made regarding the pooled readmission rates.

In summary, we found that patients with cirrhosis experience a high incidence of hospital readmissions. Several processes of care may be associated with readmissions, suggesting room for improvement in caring for this population and reducing readmissions. However, we identified several gaps in the literature, which does not adequately describe social factors and is lacking details on readmission preventability assessment. Future studies should attempt to address these issues so that interventions can be targeted to the highest risk patients and designed to best meet the needs of patients with cirrhosis.